Tikkun Olam

(nablopomo day 20) How can we hope to rebuild the Beit HaMikdash if we are not allowed to build in all the land?  This is a reminder of the terrible mistake the Israeli government and the army made the day after Tisha b'Av, 2005.  Their entire attitude was wrong .  Jews do not expel Jews.  Jews fight for their land, and conquer swamps, diseases, and poverty--and build a holy civilization and life. At the very end, the sign in Hebrew reads: "We will remember, and we will return.  Gush Katif."

(nablopomo day 16) I hate to say "As If," but now the Israeli government's investigative commission on the 2005 Gush Katif disengagement has just been revealed, and lo--wonder of wonders--it concludes that the evacuation of approximately 9,000 people from the Gush Katif communities in Gaza was a total governmental failure . The state’s official investigative committee regarding the country’s treatment of the Gush Katif expellees has been issued, giving failing grades to the government. Gush Katif residents say they hope the report will lead to change, The so-called "disengagement," which was really a total evacuation and expulsion of citizens of Israel from territory that was captured in a defensive war which was completely built up by these citizens from merely sand dunes to thriving towns, with a thriving economy and successful, closely-knit communities.  I will NOT use the term "settlers," because the truth is that the entire country of Israe...

I have not posted Part V of the Zola Levitt Joan Peters interview since March. There are two more segments, V and VI, so here is the-next-to-the-last-one. (the first 4 can be seen here , here , here and here .) The sad disappointment which comes out in this interview, is what Ms. Peters says about then Prime-Minister Ariel Sharon, whom many thought, before the hitnatkut* , was going to be the strong 'savior' of Israel. Little did we know at the time how that would turn out. . . *hitnatkut: disengagement from Gaza

I don't want to say it (besides which, Steven Plaut said it very well first), but Israel is almost like the fool who keeps beating his head against a brick wall again and again, thinking that each time he does it--he might (finally) get the wall to break; instead, his head does (G-d forbid) . Perusing blogs I found this (hat tip Daled Amos ) about fantasy land and wishful thinking on Israel's part: doing the same thing over and over again hoping for different results. It is the " Two States for Two Peoples " fantasy by Plaut, last in the long line of previous fantasies, such as (in no particular order) the Oslo Accords , Camp David , the Road Map , the disengagement from Gaza , etc. In all cases, the surrounding Arab states have not officially recognized Israel as a Jewish state nor its right to exist, nor have the rocket and terrorist attacks against Israelis ceased. Basically it still is as they say the "same old same old." And here comes Israel's Pr...

Get your own Menorah at ChaiSpace ! I wish I had seen this when Chanukah began. Now it will only be up for a day and a half, as I am writing this at 4:40 p.m. my time, the end of the seventh day of Chanukah. Our radio is set to automatically turn on every day, including Shabbat. We heard first the BBC and then at 6:30 a.m. the NPR report about Operation Oferet Yetzukah *, that the IDF launched a massive air strike into Gaza. It's about time. I am tired of the negative, accusatory questions posed to Israeli representatives, such as 'why is Israel launching an aggresive strike, why isn't Israel concerned about civilian casualties, how will Israel answer world condemnation,' and blah, blah, blah. It makes me sick. The responsibility for the so-called Palestinians (anyone living in the region before the State of Israel was also a Palestinian, Jews included; there is no "Arab" state called Palestine, never has been, and such a state should NOT be created) in G...

It is hard to imagine that three years have passed since the hitnatkut (called the "disengagement" in English, but which really was a summary eviction ) of the residents of the area known as Gush Katif, in Aza (the Gaza Strip). How a government can take a flourishing, producing community whose agricultural industries were self-sufficient and globally successful, evict them for no apparent reason (we'll go into that later) from their homes which they had basically built with their own hands and had been living in--some for as many as thirty years, with no definitive future plan for their living arrangements or livlihood on the books, and then demolish their homes and allow their greenhouses to turn into rubble, is mind-boggling, and absolutely irrational. The s0-called 'reasons' for then PM Ariel Sharon's 'plan'- if there was one - were mainly to show the global community how pro-active Israel was to promote Peace with the Palestinians , which of...